


Saltwater

by chasing_the_sterek



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: BAMF Lance, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Fluff, Hurt Lance (Voltron), Lance and Blue are bros, Light Angst, M/M, Oceans, Surviving, Swearing, Water Planets, hella lotta water, i mean Lance and Blue are buddies so, injuries, kind of?, migranes, probably because it's a water planet, so much water jfc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-08-27 20:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8415061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasing_the_sterek/pseuds/chasing_the_sterek
Summary: Blue? Lance tries.Lance, Blue replies softly. Her reply is filled with static, broken up like a bad phone call connection, but she somehow manages to be gentle and cautious of his headache. What a saint.//Lance wakes up alone, crash-landed in the middle of an ocean in a broken lion with injuries littering his body and a (small!) concussion.In all honesty, he's not 100% sure he's going to be able to come out of this exactly the same way he was when he went in.





	1. The Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FIRST BIT OF MY NANOWRIMO, YEAH BABY
> 
> Exams. Ew.
> 
> I have never set a different publish date before. I hope this actually works.
> 
> EDIT: apparently you're not allowed to set a publication date in the future. How rude. I'm just gonna post it now then I guess

"Ow," Lance says.

He screws his eyes shut against the light that's filtering through Blue's eyes in irregular, shifting rays. Imprints brand his retinas for a handful more seconds, then begin to fade away slowly; his pounding headache doesn't seem to be quite so easy to deal with.

Lance takes stock of his injuries as he waits for his migraine to die down enough to attempt opening his eyes again. There's a throbbing lump on the back of his head, stinging slightly like an open wound; there are multiple lacerations all over his body where his armour has either failed to protect him in his entirety or done the opposite and dug in enough to injure. He can't feel his right leg at all, which is definitely not a good sign, and there is, obviously, the issue of his headache - and possible concussion - to take into account as well.

Blue is worryingly silent.

Quick self-scan complete, Lance eases his eyes open bit by bit until he doesn't have to squint.

The first thing he notices is that his visor is cracked. When he carefully reaches up and pulls his helmet off it's dented and scratched and broken. There's no hope of contact through the comms in the state it's in.

Shit.

Lance moves on. Stays motivated.

When he peers out of Blue's eyes, all he can see is water. Miles and miles of it, in every direction, completely surrounding him and Blue, engulfing them in ocean. There's a sandy floor to the right, the bright light that was bothering him when he woke up stabbing its way into the cockpit at a sharp angle from his left.

Blue must be lying on her right side, which leads Lance's mind down the route of _crash landing,_ which leads to a slightly vague but reasonable explanation as to why every inch of him seems to be hurting.

Speaking of. . .

 _Blue?_ Lance tries.

 **Lance,** Blue replies softly. Her reply is filled with static, broken up like a bad phone call connection, but she somehow manages to be gentle and cautious of his headache. What a saint.

_You doing okay?_

There's a pause, like Blue is weighing up what to say. Considering her options. Lance wonders if she's going to gloss over injuries, or if she's going to give him a list, or something in between. She eventually seems to settle with: **I have been better, and I have been worse.**

 _That's not very helpful,_ Lance thinks back at her, _but I'm somewhere along those lines too, so I can't exactly complain._

He feels Blue's presence surge forwards, enveloping his mind in what essentially feels like a cool hug; there's a hum of dissatisfaction and a twinge of guilt, and then she's retracting as quickly as she came. Lance misses the soothing coolness almost immediately.

 **Leaning more towards the worse side, aren't you?** Blue says, faint traces of admonishment in her tone.

Lance scowls, ignoring the absolute _wonders_ that does for his head, and attempts to copy what Blue just did.

It takes a little while, and a bit of a push, but gradually he becomes aware of broken thrusters and jarred electronics; crucial pieces of wiring broken apart and numerous scrapes along her sides. Unsurprisingly enough, her right side is faring worse than her left, though her left flank is hardly unscathed.

 _Same goes for you,_ Lance replies. He raises a mental eyebrow at her, a semi-playful challenge, but lingers for a moment or two, observing their surroundings through Blue's eyes despite it being pretty much exactly the same view he has. He feels her metal thrumming with a sentient energy far beyond anything Earth could ever hope to make, wears her emotions and her pain and her passion like a kid wearing their parent or sibling's too-big clothes. He tries to remove as much hurt as he can, shouldering as much of her immense burden for her as possible before she nudges him away.

Blue's voice is louder when she speaks this time - probably because of the closeness, but hey. Lance is allowed to be surprised. **Are you done, little one?**

The Blue Paladin harrumphs and allows his attention to flow back into himself. Deciding against giving Blue a reply (she's perfectly aware of what he was doing anyway, Lance felt the slight surprise and warm gratitude when she realised what he was doing), he shifts his weight and moves to stand -

"Ow," Lance says again.

He gazes down at his right leg. In all honesty, he's not sure why he hadn't checked it before - not feeling anything in a certain area is either because it's gone to sleep or something bad has happened - but it must have slipped his mind somehow.

The armour on his calf is in fucking pieces. Shards of it are embedded in his leg, explaining why some of it is more red than blue, and his foot is being crushed under a piece of. . . something that appears to have used his calf and then his foot to soften its landing. The reason for his leg's numbness is, as far as he can see, merely armour pieces and undersuit fabric working together in beautiful, convenient harmony to cut off enough circulation for him to not have to feel what is no doubt agonising pain.

Shit.

Also, now that he's looking at it, his foot might be dislocated.

Double shit.

A waterfall of further curses fall from his lips, slipping smoothly from Spanish to English and back again. Lance bangs the back of his head against the pilot seat in frustration, and grinds his teeth together until the swearing becomes wordless noises of irritation.

 **There is a first aid kit underneath my dashboard on the right,** Blue offers softly.

The stifled worry in her voice is enough motivation for Lance to turn his head and look for it. He can see the corner of a little blue box, just out of reach, and he closes his eyes for a second purely so he can devote more attention to screaming bloody murder at whatever was controlling his life, be it fate, destiny, or some twisted deity.

**Lance?**

_Yeah, I got it. Thanks, Blue._ He sounds tired, even to himself.

**I'm sorry I cannot move it closer to you.**

_Nah, it's cool,_ Lance reassures, even though it probably isn't and both of them know it. _I'm gonna try anyway._

Reaching out one arm hurts. Lance hasn't extended it or stretched it or anything - just raised it to somewhere between shoulder and hip height - and it's already sending shooting pain up his arm.

He spares a moment to shake his mental fist at fate again. Round two of _Can Lance Reach The Box Without Dying_ commences, and almost right off the bat Lance is biting his own tongue to keep himself quiet and scrunching himself up in pain. His fingers brush the corner -

The box slides away. Fuck his life.

Lance retracts his arm and recuperates for a moment. He closes his eyes and thinks about his family, both the mismatched one he's made for himself up here in space and the one he left behind all that time ago. Hunk and Pidge and his mom and Shiro and his big brothers Madeo and Leo and Allura and his twin big sisters Ana and Ane and Keith and his little brothers Tonio and Álvaro and Coran and Pidge his little sister Lucy. And, fuck, all of his aunts and uncles and cousins, and all of the weird alien people Lance met on their weird-ass planet, needing a Voltron that's not one Paladin short and therefore incomplete.

Middle kid. Paladin of Voltron. Brother. Uncle. Friend.

Fuck, Lance refuses to die because he was too goddamn lazy to try more than twice to get a first aid box.

He doesn't take it steady or slowly on Round Three. He just braces himself, plants his left hand on the armrest for more leverage, and throws himself at the first aid box, actually managing to swipe it out from underneath Blue's dash and return to his chair. Boom. Achievement accomplished.

There are pros and cons to the _do it like you're ripping off a Band-Aid_ course of action.

The first con, which definitely takes the prize for most noticeable, is the pain. Sudden movements (like that fun one Lance just demonstrated!) tend to shift things around, intentionally or not, and now circulation and feeling is rapidly returning to his leg. The sharp motion of snapping back into his pilot seat has made his headache worse tenfold. He's suddenly aware of injuries he hadn't been aware of before, fresh hurts that were dormant during his quick self-check earlier - bruised ribs and scrapes adorning what feels like every inch of his torso.

However, Lance now has the medical kit.

He blows his cheeks out in a long breath. Talk about a major difference between the sizes of the lists - cons, everything under the sun, pros, one measly first aid kit.

"Ugh," Lance complains, and cracks the kit open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS FEELS SO SHORT OMG???
> 
> It feels like it's a couple hundred words but no apparently it's 1.5K???
> 
> That's so weird how


	2. Just In Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue is a huge nerd, there is bonding, and Lance is completely ignoring his injuries because obviously that's the most logical thing to do in this situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually thought this would be a pretty quick update??? I guess fate was against me because my phone broke the day after I posted the last chapter, which meant I lost the three-quarters of this chapter I'd written. It's still not fixed. Help me I miss it RIP my love

One and a half hours and a small pile (see: mountain) of self-extracted armour pieces later, Lance is scooping bubbly goo out of a little white pot with shaky fingers.

“This is so weird,” Lance complains, but to be honest it just feels like slime and he’s not really all that bothered by it. The weirdest thing about the slime-goo (sloo?) is probably the way it’s glowing a pretty teal, bright and soft, but that’s about it.

He wrinkles his nose as he covers the cuts and slashes in his leg with it. It’s cold, and it stings, but for the most part it really does seem to be a cooler version of the antiseptics back home.

 _How’re your scans going, Blue?_ he asks to take his mind off of his injuries.

Blue hums consideringly. **Not spectacularly,** she answers. **I am reminded why I usually do not do scans of the surrounding area lying on my side.**

Lance looks up and frowns. _What does that mean?_

She huffs through their connection, frustrated. **It means that the seafloor is covered in an irritating substance which bounces my scan back and confuses me.**

He places the open sloo (yes, that’s what he’s calling it now) pot back in the first aid kit carefully, then makes grabby hands at the controls. Blue slides his chair forwards a little so he can reach them without moving his leg, confusion dancing along the border between their minds, and Lance closes his fingers around the joysticks with a smile.

_You mean it would be easier if you were standing up?_

Blue snorts, her head leaving clouds of bubbles in its wake as she shakes it in amusement. **I suppose you could interpret it that way,** she replies, but the confusion has been replaced by soft gratitude that wraps around Lance’s mind like an echo of what Blue did earlier.

 _That’s good,_ Lance shoots back, his smile stretching into a grin, eyes sparkling with humour, hands steady and sure as they tap in commands and manoeuvre holoscreens. _Because that’s the way I’m interpreting it._

The view through Blue’s eyes changes as she moves. The gap between Lance and the seafloor increases with each passing second, the angle also changing until the seafloor is below instead of on his right. The sunlight filtering in doubles, triples in intensity, becomes harsh and blinding as Blue’s head moves into a stronger ray of sunlight.

Lance feels like he’s said the word _ow_ too many times already, so he bites his tongue and doesn’t say anything.

Blue isn’t moving as fast as she usually does, probably from a mixture of being hurt and underwater, and while Lance wordlessly makes allowances for it it’s slightly concerning. The transition from lying on one side to standing upright makes Lance ache for the surface, makes him want to run and jump and _move._ The sudden urge is inexplicable, and strong, and even though Lance shoves it down into the Abyss Of Unwanted Feelings he and Blue still barely stop long enough for her to run her scan, analyse the data, and throw it up on a holoscreen.

**@#£% &**&%£#@**

The seabed doesn’t change much as they sprint over it. The odd rock crops up suddenly, literally out of the blue, and there are occasional huge gaps and cracks in the rocky floor, but otherwise the biggest changes are the sealife. Shoals of neon-scaled fish startle away as Blue careens through the ocean, probably leaving confusion and a huge trail of bubbles in her wake, and Lance thinks he spots a couple of dark green sharks with neon pink spots. It’s eerily similar to Earth, making you feel as though you know exactly what this planet is like, but just different enough to confuse you when it’s not what you expect. Lance keeps getting blindsided by things that wouldn’t usually throw him off.

According to Blue’s scans, they have to continue up the gentle slope until they come to a pebbly beach, and that’s it. Boom, land found.

_Isn’t this suspiciously easy?_

Blue rumbles. **I agree, but I’m hesitant to look a gift horse in the mouth, as your saying goes.**

He makes a noise of assent by way of a reply, and the two of them lapse into silence.

 _Maybe the air is poisonous,_ Lance muses. _Or there’s a cutthroat alien species just waiting to skin us alive and truss us up as offerings to their gods -_

**Lance,** Blue insists. **Gift horse. Mouth.**

“Right,” Lance mutters. “Sorry, Blue.” 

Soft vibrations shake the cockpit as she hums warmly. **Don’t worry about it. My scans said the air is breathable.**

“Oh.” Lance says. He’s not sure why he’s speaking out loud. _What about the cutthroat aliens?_

Amusement filters through the boundary like leaves blowing in the wind. **I have no idea. I have no knowledge of this planet. I don’t even know what it’s called.**

Lance’s eyes widen with excitement. _“We could name it!”_

Blue’s speed falters in surprise at both the volume and the enthusiasm behind his outburst, and she nearly misses a step. **You certainly seem very excited about that idea,** she mutters as she recovers rapidly and gets back up to speed, quickly regaining the rhythm she had before. 

_Haven’t you ever thought about that?_ Lance asks, kind of surprised. Surely in however many thousands of years Blue had been alive she’d thought about having a planet named after her? Not _hers,_ just. . . named? There wasn’t exactly much to do for her on Earth, stuck in that rocky cave with nothing but a pool of water for God knew how long. Surely the thought had crossed her mind? 

**Not particularly,** Blue responds. **Although I started to about fifteen ticks ago.**

Lance chooses to ignore the half-smile vibes she’s sending in favour of doggedly (probably a poor choice of words, considering she was a big cat) pursuing her opinion. _And?_

**Well, I suppose if I were to choose a name for a planet I would name it. . . Atlantia.**

Lance blinks. He wonders if Blue knows about the underwater city, if she’d casually hacked into nearby WiFis and downloaded information about the Earth while she was there and had stumbled upon legends and myths and fables about it. 

_Any particular reason why?_ he tests carefully. 

There’s something like. . . faint embarrassment? **I am aware of your planet’s mythology, Lance.**

He breaks into a lopsided grin. _You’re just a huge nerd underneath all those weapons and armour, aren’t you?_

The traces of embarrassment increase. **Remember the weapons and armour,** Blue mutters exasperatedly. **What happened to the Lance who stood in front of my particle barrier on Earth and looked scared?**

Lance snorts. _**That** Lance only lasted a couple of seconds. Guess I was never meant to be afraid of you, buddy._

**And I am glad of that,** Blue answers honestly. Their mental link’s light-heartedness fades into sobriety, but remains warm; Lance shivers at the change despite the feeling in his chest, lopsided grin melting away into something softer. 

_Me too,_ Lance replies quietly, and they sit in silence for a little while. 

Although it’s not quite silent, is it - there is the low hum of Blue’s presence in his head, the gentle sounds she makes as she sprints through the water. If Lance strains his ears, he can hear the thud of her footfall on the seabed and the whoosh of the bubbles she’s making. 

**My sensors say we’re nearly at the surface,** Blue announces suddenly. 

Lance sits up straighter, eyes snapping up from where they’d been fixed on his hands as he fiddles with the armour shards he’d removed earlier. A couple of them scatter onto the floor of the cockpit at the sudden move, and he winces, leaning forward to pick them up. 

**Don’t,** Blue warns him. **They are fine where they are for now, Lance. I would like to stay alert when we leave the water.**

_Just in case,_ Lance agrees, and ignores the two more pieces that fall when he straightens. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT DO Y'ALL THINK'LL BE ON THE SURFACE? Killer monkeys? The cannibals Lance was talking about earlier? Or worse? Maybe it's a planet where the trees are healing pods (lucky Lance) or maybe the very air you breathe is deadly poison. Maybe there's a surprise Keith (TM). Maybe Lance is literally just going to find ice and nothing else. Maybe it's an active volcano and everybody dies.
> 
> Who knows what fun things lay ahead???
> 
> (see: not even me)
> 
> This is such a filler, holy shit
> 
> There'll be plot soon, I swear


	3. 20 Questions; AKA Conversations To Fill The Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arth, rain, and brief considerations of robot tumblr blogs, with a small sprinkling of alien encounters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Filler, filler, filler filler filler I'm so sorry.
> 
> This took ages to write and it's not even wORTH IT??? ugh

Surfacing, somewhat anticlimactically, introduces only one new thing to Lance and Blue's experience since crash-landing here. Water cascades past the visuals like Niagara Falls, transforming everything around them into a blurry mess glimpsed only through waves of seawater. Eventually most of the liquid has drained away, and a jungle that looks eerily like one of Earth's rainforests is revealed; a long white beach stretches between the treeline and the frothy waves lapping at the shore. Mountains rise on the horizon, gazing over the island they sit in the middle of with scraggly rock faces Lance has a gut feeling he will get to know quite well during his. . . unexpected holiday here.

Deeming the outside world unsafe for now, due to a mixture of malfunctions with Blue's scanners (they'd been working fine - well, half-fine - a second ago, so it was cause for suspicion) and Lance's hesitance to step onto a world that's quite so heartachingly familiar. He's afraid it might shatter the moment he touches his foot to the sand, ultimately nothing but a cruel illusion. Blue seems reluctant to let him go, either way, so Lance stays in the cockpit and Blue stays standing in the No Man's Land between the rainforest and the ocean.

Boredom sets in rapidly, and eventually Lance's mind comes up with the groundshaking idea to play twenty questions.

_What do you miss about Altea?_

He feels Blue startle, and sends apologetic vibes. He can't blame her for jumping - the sound of his own voice scared himself, and he was at least half-expecting the (admittedly rather blurted) question. She reassures him with a brush of fond forgiveness, then retreats to consider.

Blue hums, the rumbling mechanical purrs vibrating the floor. **I miss the warmth,** she decides after a while.

 _We go to plenty of warm planets,_ Lance replies, but he thinks he has an idea what she means.

 **Not warm the way Altea was,** Blue replies, confirming it. **The people were so welcoming. It didn't matter if you were Altean or Galra or anything in between, you were welcome; at least, that was what it was like when I was created, ten thousand-odd years ago. It was peaceful back then. Altea was a haven. Healing pods, free supply refills, education for those who wanted it and training or jobs for those who needed it. Alfor was a good king, and a good leader. He granted us the right to choose our own Paladins when we requested it, and did not have an issue when some were selected which were not Altean; in fact, I believe he went off and researched those species in particular, completely of his own accord, so as to adjust his aid to better suit that Paladin. Altea's castle doors were always open. Allura opened them out of habit back on Arus. Altea was a warm place, not due to temperature, but due to the pure love the people living there had for each other. Everybody was peaceful. Us lions were seen as protectors, not just brain-dead war machines; and you, certainly, do not either, but I cannot say I have spoken to the other lions about it.**

Blue lapses back into contemplative silence again, apparently finished.

Lance thinks about Coran and Allura. He wonders if they miss the same things as Blue, as each other, if they wish they could keep the Castle doors open for anyone who wishes for shelter. He wonders if the other lions miss different things, or if they mourn for the same warmth Blue does, or if maybe one or two or all of them don't actually miss Altea at all.

 **What do you miss about Earth?** Blue returns softly.

 _A lot of things,_ Lance answers. He leans back in the pilot chair a little, only not kicking his legs up on Blue's dash because one of them is injured and he wants to heal as quickly as possible so he can get on with survival shit. His eyes track unfamiliar constellations across a dark green sky - yet another thing that catches him a little too much off-guard. _Although I'm not as poetic as you are. I miss my family, my Mamá, my seven siblings. My Abuleta, and my Abuleto. Veradero Beach. I miss surfing and paddle-boarding and swimming. I miss Earth food. Ice cream and chocolate and a burger and fries. Hell, I even miss Cup-A-Soups, and I after I spent a year and a half living off those in the Garrison I swore to never eat one again._

 _Earth was warm too, almost like you described Altea, but I'm not blind. People hated each other left and right. People were driven to breaking point and further far, far too often._ Lance's mind lulls softly as he thinks everything over. He and Blue's sadness collide on the boundary line between their minds, two tsunami waves of misery and regret and empathy, like meeting like as they both realise abruptly that the other is not quite as sheltered as they would like them to be.

 **Your world sounds like a sad one,** Blue offers after a minute of silence. **But I am not foolish enough to believe that sadness was the only emotion felt on Arth.**

Lance presses his lips together desperately, chest trembling with the effort of holding his breath. He can feel his face going red from it.

And, well, the conversation topic is sad, but -

You can't really blame him for -

Lance snorts explosively, then gives up and allows his laughter to flow freely. He can feel Blue hesitantly nudging at his mind for an explanation, confusion only increasing tenfold when all the touch provokes are echoes of the word _Arth._ He sounds like a seal when he repeats it.

 **Are you okay?** Blue questions when he starts crying.

Lance knows he (probably) wouldn't usually laugh as hard as this over a mispronunciation of the name of his home planet. Some occasions he might not even find it very funny at all. But in the last twenty-four hours so much has happened that he can't really help but get tugged along in the wake of relief-fuelled mirth.

Blue replays her last sentence again, puzzling over the source of his amusement. Lance manages to stop laughing for long enough to shakily point a mental finger at the last word, then chokes out a short correction of _Earth_ before wheezily dissolving into giggles again.

Blue mutters an Altean curse. **It's not _that_ funny,** she mumbles, bitter with embarrassment.

 _I wouldn't let Hunk get away with it, I'm not letting you get away with it,_ Lance retorts.

 **Thanks.** Sarcasm drips from her voice like honey off one of those honey stirrer baton. . . things.

 _Sarcasm!_ Lance cheers. _I swear you didn't know what that meant when I met you!_

**I'm over ten thousand years old, Lance. I know what sarcasm is.**

_Shut your metal face and let me rejoice. Hey, we could even throw a party!_

**A what?**

Lance blinks. Blue doesn't know what a party is? _So much for over ten thousand years old._

A flash flood of mild irritation; blink and you miss it, but present all the same. **Enlighten me.**

Lance considers his phrasing. How do you describe a party to a being that is over ten thousand years old without the activity seeming juvenile or naïve? Lance really wishes he had Google. _Many people gather in one place,_ he says slowly, _to celebrate any event they find big enough to warrant one. This includes birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, a kid, New Year's, Thanksgiving, Diwali, the life of someone who's recently passed, Glastonbury, Chinese New Year, international holidays. . ._ He abruptly realises that Blue is unlikely to have a single clue what most of these are. _Uh, they're often happy and warm, like you described Altea. Sometimes parties are thrown for no reason at all other than you want one._

 **That seems very decadent.** Blue answers after a moment. **I thought that, after my years on your planet, I was close to understanding your customs, but it appears there is still much to learn.**

Lance wonders again if Blue hacked the internet and downloaded information from there. Did she like memes? Did she have a favourite band, or film, or TV show, or book? Did she prefer Marvel or DC? Any celebrity crushes? Did she watch films illegally online or hack Netflix?

Lance tries to imagine a giant robotic space lion managing a tumblr account, and rapidly decides that for the sake of professionalism he shouldn't ever try that again.

(Blue would totally be a fandom blog.)

Rain interrupts both of their thoughts as it patters down on Blue's head. Lance's heart aches with the yearning to go and stand in it, jump in the puddles it forms and tilt his head back to drink some straight from the sky and wiggle his toes underneath the water as it ripples with raindrops. But they don't know anything about the atmosphere yet, and Lance's helmet is just broken enough to probably compromise the safe breathing extension it has. They need Blue's outward scanners before they continue any further, so they need to fix them - but fixing them means knowing where the problem is, and so Blue's (slightly less damaged) interior scan is going as fast as possible to find the issue.

They've been here for three hours already and the scan has only reached partway to Blue's hips. From her head. Lance can hardly stand all of this waiting around, especially when it's raining outside. The sound is beautiful and relaxingly familiar - he's always loved the sound of rain - but he itches to leave the cabin that's rapidly becoming borderline claustrophobic.

Save him, he's going to die.

 _You know what kind of party I'd really like right now?_ Lance muses.

 **What?** Blue answers.

_A Voltron search party._

She laughs, but her desire for the same thing laps at the edges of her mind.

**@#£% &**&%£#@**

Blue is in the middle of an explanation of typical Altean stereotypes (actually a surprisingly interesting topic - but that's aliens for you, he guesses) when suddenly, she's silent.

Lance is instantly on high alert. "Blue?" _Blue, you there?_

The cockpit vibrates around him warningly. Lance goes stops trying to get out of his seat and makes as little noise as possible.

 _Am I okay to speak on here?_ He tries to make the volume of it more like a whisper.

 **I do not know,** she kind-of-whispers back. **For now, let's avoid it, just in case. I would recommend going to sleep and recuperating.**

Lance sends offended protests over their link. Blue sends stubborn insisting waves right back. The cockpit shudders warningly again, somehow in an infinitesimally different tone, and Lance shuts up.

He's a little too wired from adrenaline to sleep at first. He wants to know what's out there, why Blue's silent. He notices that her interior scan is complete, and reaches up to the holoscreen to (silently!) start an exterior scan, but his finger hasn't even come within an inch of the display when it pops up a large red box with _NO, LANCE!_ written on it. Lance scowls and sticks his tongue out at it, and a semi-apologetic _this scan is already in progress_ tacks itself on in smaller lettering underneath.

Having truly exhausted anything he can think to do, Lance slumps as much as he can in his chair and watches the Altean figures move on the screens around him until he falls asleep.

**@#£% &**&%£#@**

When he wakes up, it's dark.

He waves a hand in front of his face - nothing - and blinks a couple of times in an effort to clear them, which doesn't work.

He fights against rising panic. _Blue?_

 **Lance,** Blue reassures. She rushes into his mind like cool water, soothing and liquid. **Everything remains the same as when you fell asleep. It's just what passes for night-time on this planet. You're not blind, I promise.**

 _S'fuckin dark,_ Lance grumbles, rubbing the heels of his palms against his eyes one last time before huffing and slumping in his seat.

 **I cannot turn on my lights, or I would have done,** Blue admits. **I am unsure about whether the light would offend our planetmates, and wanted to speak to you before proceeding.**

Lance hums. _Maybe we could kind of acclimatise them to it?_

 **Start off slowly,** Blue agrees, and a dim blue holoscreen lights up nearby. When Lance turns to look at it, it displays the results of a full planetary scan and analysis of atmosphere, alongside a list of repairs required. After a further second of scrutiny Lance notes that ones able to be completed from inside Blue are green, ones for the outside are red, and ones that could be both or need flitting between are orange. There are some areas that are in dire need of repair, possibly even punctured all the way through by rocks on the seafloor. It looks like they were lucky to get onto the surface at all, let alone alive and in reasonably good shape. There are certainly going to be a lot of replacement panels needed, not to mention the hellish amount of other parts, but Lance can see a second tab titled EQUIPMENT LIST that - going by the title - takes care of just that.

Blue's a smart girl.

Lance picks his way down the list and eenie-meenie-minie-mo-s between a simple fuse fix and an inside panel change in her hind leg. He slathers on some more sloo (ha, alliteration) and lets it dry, tapping his fingers impatiently, before heaving himself up.

 _Gonna get started on the panel fix,_ he tells Blue. _Where are the new ones stored?_

She directs him to a little side room, putting emphasis on little. It's about half the size of a broom cupboard, if the broom cupboard were to be cut in half widthways instead of lengthways. Lance feels his breath hitch when he sees the contents.

Concern flits through the link. **What is it?**

 _It's the panels,_ Lance says, semi-numb. _They're all broken._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The way is paved for onward movement! Whoop-de-fuckin-doo.
> 
> I meant to post this on the 14th (woo, yet another Valentine's Day spent single as a pringle), but it didn't work no matter what I tried so I went to sleep and tried again on the 15th, which _still_ didn't work, so I figured I'd try one last time today before I bust out the big guns to get this unworthy little shit posted and it worked. I'm not saying I'm crying out of relief, but there's a strong possibility it's a close thing.
> 
> See ya next time, losers


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